Hi,

I wanted to find out if you could evaluate my profile for admission to the following MBA programs: Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Northwestern, UChicago

Background: Japanese (U.S. Citizen - born and raised in San Francisco)

Attended Cornell University and graduated with honors with a bachelors degree in economics

Undergrad GPA: 3.6/4.0
GMAT: 760 (M49, V44)

Work Experience:
- Worked at Deutsche Bank in New York for three years as an analyst in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group (investment banking); was ranked in the top tier of all analysts globally each year
- Have worked as the strategy manager (yes, "the" not "a" - I am the entire strategy group) for a startup for the past year and a half; the startup is IPOing in December

Extracurriculars:
- Board member for the Cornell Club of New York (past two years)
- Have served on the board of a non-profit that helps underprivileged children get involved in after school activities (past 8 months)
- Have volunteered at a non-profit tutoring elementary school children once a week (past year and a half)

Personal:
- Have lived with a seizure disorder for the past five years (key reason for leaving investment banking) after my three-year analyst stint
- Black Belt in Karate (just threw that in because it's something I'm proud of, lol)

I believe one weakness in my application is my lack of extracurriculars during my three years at Deutsche Bank. I was literally working 100 hours a week and just didn't have the time. That's another reason why I decided to leave financial services entirely and join the startup - my reduced hours have given me the time to get more involved in my community. I just didn't think that three years working 100 hours a week (while impressive) painted the right picture of me as a person. I've tried to use the past two years to make myself a bit more well rounded, and I hope to explain that in my essays.

My reason for wanting to go to business school is to get into consulting.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Question for you, before I move on to other stuff about your profile... are the health issues going to come up in your recommendations, and do you need to write about them to deal with changes in your career history, or is there an alternative? That's the one thing that I think might make them question your ability to complete the program--they'll definitely want to know that you're in good health and that everything is under control!

Your overall profile looks excellent--in my experience, the gap in extracurricular stuff is actually fairly common among young investment bankers, for the same reason you give--ridiculously long working hours!

I think you're starting your applications in a good place--you just need to figure out how/if/where to cover any health-related issues that might raise a red flag. Good luck, and please let me know if I can help!

Sonia